The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/default.aspxen-USTelligent Community 1.5.134.12297 (Build: 5.5.134.12297)Blog Post: A Zombie Adventure You Shouldn't Take Part In. http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/user_reviews/archive/2013/04/29/a-zombie-adventure-you-shouldn-39-t-take-part-in.aspxMon, 29 Apr 2013 19:32:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2800257Canuckian-Carson<p><span>When The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct was announced last year, I couldn&#39;t help but be excited. How could I not be? The game is all about my favorite character from the show, Daryl, and his not so likable brother Merle. They threw you in - making you search for resources that will keep you alive for a little longer. I started to worry about the game&#39;s quality once I saw the developer behind it. Terminal Reality developed it, and they&#39;re responsible for the abysmal Kinect Star Wars game. Unfortunately, the zombies aren&#39;t very intimidating - making it easy to take out a whole herd of them by simply using your knife. The game definitely has many problems. One of those problems being severe monotony. Fortunately, this game is a bit better than Kinect Star Wars. But that&#39;s not saying very much....</span><br /><br /><span>&nbsp;The environments are very stale. You&#39;ll be fighting through towns, forests, and train yards. They encourage you to explore, but you can only go into a very limited amount of houses. Sometimes while exploring, you&#39;ll come across some people who needs help. This is where the side quests come in. One required me to find antibiotics for a man&#39;s bitten wife. I searched the pharmacy, and after finding the antibiotics, I&#39;m on my way back. Once I return, I hear a gunshot, It was too late. I wasn&#39;t rewarded for going out of my way.... The side quests are very unsatisfying, and shouldn&#39;t be bothered with.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span>&nbsp;To get to each mission, you need a car to travel. To use your car, you need gas. Gas in the game is vital. If you&#39;re driving (you don&#39;t control the car), and you run out of gas, you need to get out and find more. Sometimes your car will breakdown, or your tire will blow. You need to get out and find something that will get you rolling again. It&#39;s a nice little distraction at first, but it feels like a chore after the third time. They repeat the environment for these instances as well. It&#39;s all exactly the same. Sometimes they&#39;ll add more zombies, but all the supplies you&#39;ll find will respawn at the exact same place when you come back. It&#39;s very monotonous, and I believe the developer did it just to make the game longer.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span>&nbsp;The enemy variety is very, very minuscule, too. You&#39;re going to fight the same zombies throughout the entire game. It takes four slow hits for your knife to put down a single zombie. The best way to kill them is to push them, walk around them, and assassinate them. It gets pretty redundant. Some zombies will just stand there and watch you - even if you&#39;re just a few feet away. They&#39;ll try to walk towards you, but suddenly, change their minds and walk the other direction. When a zombie does miraculously try and kill you, they will try and grab you when they&#39;re close enough. This results in a very simple quick-time event. You have to point your cross-hair at the zombie&#39;s face, and press the right trigger to attack him. The longer you take, the more health you&#39;ll lose. If they&#39;re five zombies around you, they will all take turns at trying to grab you. One by one, you can take them all down by doing this quick-time event. Because of this, you&#39;re not going to get intimidated, or frightened when you see a large crowd of zombies.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /> <div class="separator"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xdKpo-RWzHc/UX7KBIon9UI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/fSMICK3XPjo/s1600/gameplay_videon_mutatkozik_a_the_walking_dead_survival_instinct_1-620x.jpg"><img width="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xdKpo-RWzHc/UX7KBIon9UI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/fSMICK3XPjo/s640/gameplay_videon_mutatkozik_a_the_walking_dead_survival_instinct_1-620x.jpg" height="344" border="0" alt="" /></a></div> <span>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</span> <div class="separator"></div> <br /><br /><br /><br /><span>&nbsp;The weapons are the only redeeming quality. You get a large roster of weapons. From melee weapons, to large weapons, you&#39;ll have quite the arsenal by the end of the game. Each weapon has its perks. The baseball bat, for example, can deal a great amount of damage, hit at further distances, but they&#39;re slower. A hatchet is quite fast, but it&#39;s not as powerful, and it doesn&#39;t hit nearly far. The best ranged weapon in the game is obviously Daryl&#39;s crossbow. The bolts can travel far, it&#39;s quiet, and best of all, you can retrieve your bolts after shooting them. It&#39;s very satisfying to land a head shot with a crossbow. Too bad you won&#39;t get it until you&#39;re more than half way through the campaign. Once you do get it, the game gets much better. There are also flares and glass bottles in your arsenal. These will distract the zombies. You won&#39;t be needing them that much because the zombies can be taken down easily anyways. This large ample of weaponry has its price, however. You only have a 10 item limit. That also goes for ammo. You have to pick what best fits your play style. Trust me, you&#39;re going to have to discard a lot of items in this game. Also, none of the weapons break. This was a huge relief to me.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /> <div class="separator"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5MkhRHvJQ7c/UX7JoLncTlI/AAAAAAAAAFI/ndmUo4H2tXw/s1600/twdsi-1.jpg"><img width="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5MkhRHvJQ7c/UX7JoLncTlI/AAAAAAAAAFI/ndmUo4H2tXw/s640/twdsi-1.jpg" height="360" border="0" alt="" /></a></div> <br /><br /><span>&nbsp;After you complete the game in different fashions, you&#39;ll unlock relics. If you want to play through the game again, you can use these relics to make the game much more enjoyable. One of them lets you have the crossbow and assault rifle right in the games beginning. Another, adds more damage to your melee weapons. Relics are fun to goof around with, and makes achievement hunting much more simple. You can only pick one relic, however. This all depends on if you want to replay this game. Which is very unlikely!&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span>&nbsp;During the game, you can find survivors to help you along. You can let them search the area. They can find food, gas, and everything important. But you can only choose one item for them to search for. If you do this, make sure they have some sort of weapon. Daryl is likable, he has no motive. Nor does he have a set goal. Besides trying to stay alive of course. The story is quite non-existent, too. You&#39;re being attacked by zombies during a hunting trip. Daryl manages to escape in search for his brother Merle. Once they reunite, they set off for safety. It&#39;s very bland, and nothing surprising happens. Merle doesn&#39;t have that big of a part in the game either. He&#39;ll be with you in cut-scenes. But during gameplay, he&#39;s nowhere to be found. his was quite irritating because I wanted the game centered on these two guys. But the main focus is Daryl. They should give both guys equal spotlight. I would have liked online co-op, but there&#39;s none to be found here.</span><br /><br /><span>&nbsp;The game suffers from extreme mediocrity. I would not recommend this to any survival horror fan. If you&#39;re a fan of the show, you might find a few things interesting, but just give it a rent. The main campaign can be completed in 4 hours. If you want a good Walking Dead game, play the Telltale one. Leave this in the bargain bin!&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span>Setting: Thumbs Down.&nbsp;</span><br /><span>Story: Thumbs Down&nbsp;</span><br /><span>Characters: Thumbs Down</span><br /><span>Weapons: Average&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span>Overall: 2/10</span></p>Wiki: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct Guideshttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/w/guides/default.aspxTue, 26 Mar 2013 23:41:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:1979AnonymousGuides for The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct Blog Post: More-or-less what I expectedhttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/user_reviews/archive/2013/03/22/more-or-less-what-i-expected.aspxFri, 22 Mar 2013 13:47:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2674322Jared<p>Okay, lets be perfectly clear on one thing: The game is made after a tv show. We all know what games are like that are modeled after tv shows/movies: Almost complete crap. That being said, the bar for this game should be low to begin with. Why would you ever expect a 9/10 on a game based after a tv show/movie? Moving along though. The graphics are acceptable, and that&#39;s about all I&#39;ve got to say about the graphics. The game play in-and-of itself is not that bad. Every time I got into a close encounter and had to use a hatchet, or a hammer, or any other melee weapon for some reason I automatically thought about Dead Island. Not with the customization, or anything like that, just hitting the zombies with stuff like that reminded me of wailing on zombies with the melee weapons from Dead Island. Things get better when you find the baseball bat, axe and sledgehammer though. Slow to swing, but they have high damage and have decent reach. Firearms are handled pretty well too, they sounded like firearms should. I didn&#39;t feel like I was shooting a pea-shooter when I shot off a few rounds with the revolver or the shotgun. Getting head shots is as easy as you&#39;d think when dealing with shambling corpses. The crossbow, however, really let me down. Not so much in using it, but retrieving your arrows if you miss is near impossible unless you get lucky and it sticks into a wall or something like that. Otherwise, they just disappear like a fart in the wind. So you go from having 9 bolts to 2 pretty quickly if you don&#39;t watch it. </p> <p>The scavenging is nice. Your inventory will fill up quickly if you just grab everything you see, so you end up leaving behind some items that you need to make quick decisions on. Not that they are hard, but you never quite get that &quot;maybe I should&#39;ve taken those rifle bullets instead of the hammer&quot; scenario out of your head. The traveling mechanic is, overall, good. I like the fact you have to scavenge for fuel, and when you find different vehicles they each have their own fuel usage, passenger capacity and inventory slots. The people you rescue are take or leave. You can send them on errands to fetch things, and hope that they come back. They each have different abilities: like some are stealthy and like blunt weapons, or some just like rifles and are reckless. These things are fine and dandy except for one thing. You can only speculate on what some of them mean. The game never really tells you. I&#39;d suggest just telling them to stay in the car, gather as many as you can, and keep them alive until the end because they each unlock a specific relic you can use on a replay of the game. </p> <p>Now, call me old-school on this one but I like the fact there is only one enemy type. I absolutely despise games where a zombie just simply isn&#39;t a zombie. It turns into this mutated abomination from hell that is all of a sudden a billy bad-ass. I don&#39;t even mind the games where the zombies are fast, because they&#39;re still just zombies. It does get kind of boring seeing the same 8 different zombies all the time, and they have a tendency to re-use the off the path places you randomly stop at when you are traveling from destination to destination. And don&#39;t even try to kill all the zombies in a level: no matter how many you kill, they keep coming back and in some cases they even triple in numbers making back tracking for some of the optional tasks you can complete in missions a grueling task, if not just a total throwing up of your hands and saying &quot;F*** it&quot; and moving on with your life. The stealth mechanic works probably better than the other mechanics in the game. The &quot;grappling&quot; thing is weird. It&#39;s just a quick time event where you gotta line up a head shot with the knife. Gets more annoying that useful after a while. I successfully stabbed my way through 15 zombies at one time with having to go through that little QTE. Each zombie just lines up like it&#39;s their turn at the kissing booth or something. If you aren&#39;t quick about it you will take enough damage and die though, so be warned about that.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>All in all though, it wasn&#39;t a bad game. I&#39;ve played a lot worse and actually paid the full $60 to play it. For only $50 I knew what I was getting myself into anyways, just like at the beginning of this I told you about the whole playing games that are based off of tv shows and movies. Approach with a realistic expectation and you won&#39;t be that badly disappointed. Approach it like it&#39;s the next Halo, CoD, or Elder Scrolls and be sorely disappointed.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>Blog Post: Underrated for what it offers.http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/user_reviews/archive/2013/03/22/underrated-for-what-it-offers.aspxFri, 22 Mar 2013 11:19:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2674005boxcar182<p>(Wii U version, i apologize for posting this in the 360 section)<br /><br />The walking dead, licensed, &amp; activision. Yep i smell a flop. Well actually no, this game is fun for what your given if only terminal reality was given more time to polish and tune the game up some then this could&#39;ve been a redemption for licensed games.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>This game isnt BAD but it isn&#39;t a masterpiece either, its fun. Its a VIDEO GAME not a groundbreaking novel or a blockbuster movie that is nominated for 5 oscars.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>I played the game on the Wii U and it plays just fine, the gamepad gives you quick access to inventory just by clicking on the items. The game can be played with a Pro controller also, which i probably actually recommend because the gamepads dual sticks are far apart making it feel a little awkward to move around.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>the graphics aren&#39;t horrendous (but im not picky either) but with today&#39;s HD advance consoles we all expect eye candy, i understand but if you base games off graphics then this game will give you an eyesore.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>My opinion is wait for a price drop, $19.99 seems about right.</p>Blog Post: Better then we thoughthttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/user_reviews/archive/2013/03/21/better-then-we-thought.aspxFri, 22 Mar 2013 02:36:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2673174Steel braker<p>This game is okay. it does have all the problems they state but when you beat the game depending on which people you save you unlock perks like unlimited ammo and stronger melee attacks. While flawed this was a fun game. not great about a 5 or 6.enjoyed it none the less.</p>Blog Post: Worse Than A Zombie Bitehttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/xbox360/archive/2013/03/21/worse-than-a-zombie-bite.aspxFri, 22 Mar 2013 00:10:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2672673Andrew Reiner<p><img style="max-width:610px;" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/activision2013/TheWalkingDeadSI/review/walkingdead1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p>Daryl Dixon is one of the most unpredictable, flawed, enigmatic, and loved characters on AMC&rsquo;s <i>The Walking Dead</i>. He is fueled by emotional turmoil &ndash; often ignited by his brother, Merle. What show-watchers may soon learn, however, is that most of his unrest probably originates from a moment in his past. More specifically, it comes from the fact that he had to be involved in Terminal Reality&rsquo;s The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.[Excerpt]</p> <p>Aptly billed as an &ldquo;unforgiving prelude to the TV series&rdquo; on the back of the box, Daryl&rsquo;s journey in this zombie apocalypse is punishing. Those of you who are brave enough to see his origin story through to the end are in for one of the roughest rides of this gaming generation.</p> <p>I didn&rsquo;t start begging the game for mercy until the second of three acts began. The first act shows a lot of promise out of the gate, blending slow-moving stealth gameplay with an exploration component that pushes you to hunt for food, weapons, ammunition, and gasoline. Players also find other survivors who join Daryl if he helps them. The player learns early on that a gunshot &ndash; or any kind of noise, for that matter &ndash; alerts zombies to Daryl&rsquo;s location. Quietly disposing of the undead is the best tactic. This is accomplished by crouch-walking, followed by a quick knife-stab to the zombie&rsquo;s brain. This technique is handled exceptionally well. Carefully planning attacks to clear out an entire field of walkers without alerting any of them feels pretty good&hellip;until you realize you are wasting your time doing so.</p> <p>If zombies grab Daryl, they won&rsquo;t sink their teeth into him right away. Daryl always has a two- to three-second chance to jab a knife into their head via an incredibly easy quick-time event. Here&rsquo;s the kicker: If a swarm of zombies bears down on Daryl, they won&rsquo;t attack him if one of their ranks has already grabbed him. Once that zombie takes a knife to the face, all of the others queue up for subsequent QTEs. You can string together one-hit kills while taking hardly any damage.</p> <p>Backpedaling with an axe &ndash; which can deliver a one-hit kill with a charged attack &ndash; is just as effective, and more entertaining since a zombie&rsquo;s severed head comically flies 30 feet in the air each time the blow lands. Rather than slowly sneaking through the world, I sprinted right out into the middle of an area and lured all of the zombies my way so I could dispose of them in the most time-efficient way possible. It almost started to feel like a speed run.</p> <p><img style="max-width:610px;" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/activision2013/TheWalkingDeadSI/review/walkingdead2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p>Firearms only add insult to injury for your shambling foes. Since the zombies move at a snail&rsquo;s pace, lining up shots where you take out two heads with one bullet is easy. The gun also does a nice job of creating noise, which rounds them up for slaughter. Empty a clip or two, and then pull out the axe or knife to finish off the stragglers.</p> <p>The action never deviates from the formula presented in the opening minutes. Only one type of enemy exists: the basic zombie. Many of them look exactly the same. The only progression that Terminal Reality offers is a drip feed of firearms. You get a pistol and rifle early on. The shotgun comes next, followed by Daryl&rsquo;s crossbow (which functions horribly), and finally an assault rifle. The last stage is designed to be a lengthy zombie-killing spree, but I found that rather than sitting back and unloading assault rifle clips into them, Daryl can run past all of them unharmed, reaching the level exit in about two minutes.</p> <p>[View:2238066141001]</p> <p>After any level concludes, Daryl and his survivors hit the road. The amount of gas determines how far they can travel. I love the idea behind this, but the execution leaves much to be desired. If a vehicle runs out of gas, Daryl has to find more. At this point, he&#39;s forced to scavenge in smaller side areas. The problem: He enters the same area numerous times throughout the course of the game. I trekked across the same city street filled with school buses three times in a row. The buildings I could enter in this environment were the same ones I entered in the previous story area, only with rearranged items. Most of the stores Daryl frequents all end up looking the same, too. We&rsquo;re supposed to believe Daryl is traveling across Georgia, but with most of the stages looking the same, it feels like he&rsquo;s driving in circles and doesn&rsquo;t realize it.</p> <p>The survivors that join your fight can be sent off to find more supplies, which is handled much like Assassin&rsquo;s Creed: Brotherhood&rsquo;s directives, but I never needed anything more than what I found in levels, outside of an occasional barrel of gas. Helping people out delivers a little bit of story context for Daryl and the world, but doesn&rsquo;t help much on the gameplay end.</p> <p>The story delivers two interesting points that fans may want to know. The first of these happens within the first few minutes of play. The second can&rsquo;t be seen until act 2, when Daryl runs into his brother.</p> <p>Outside of these interesting narrative nuggets, Survival Instinct sinks its infected teeth into monotony and carelessly chews away at it to deliver a repetitious experience that lets a few cool ideas go to waste. This is an apocalypse you don&rsquo;t want to survive.</p>File: walkingdead111.jpghttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/m/the_walking_dead__media/2672656.aspxThu, 21 Mar 2013 23:36:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2672656Andrew ReinerWalking Dead: Survival Instinct ReviewFile: walkingdead44444.jpghttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/m/the_walking_dead__media/2672655.aspxThu, 21 Mar 2013 23:36:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2672655Andrew ReinerWalking Dead: Survival Instinct ReviewFile: walkingdead33333.jpghttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/m/the_walking_dead__media/2672654.aspxThu, 21 Mar 2013 23:36:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2672654Andrew ReinerWalking Dead: Survival Instinct ReviewFile: walkingdead2222.jpghttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/m/the_walking_dead__media/2672653.aspxThu, 21 Mar 2013 23:36:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2672653Andrew ReinerWalking Dead: Survival Instinct ReviewBlog: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - Wii Uhttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/wii_u/default.aspxThu, 10 Jan 2013 21:16:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:36491AnonymousBlog Post: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct's Trailer Fails To Impresshttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/ps3/archive/2013/01/02/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct-39-s-trailer-fails-to-impress.aspxWed, 02 Jan 2013 20:26:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2483519Ben Reeves<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/activision/walking-dead/fail610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p><b>Update: </b>The latest The Walking Dead trailer from Activision was actually a fan-made trailer using b-roll footage of the game. [Excerpt]</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://oneofswords.com/2013/01/walking-dead-survival-instinct-on-igns-up-at-noon/">One Of Swords </a>caught onto the fact that the recent The Walking Dead trailer was actually fan-made and not an official trailer for the upcoming AMC game. However, apparently the trailer was so convincing that many Activision employees thought it was legit.</p> <p><b>Original Post: </b>The Walking Dead is at the top of it&#39;s game right now, but Activision&#39;s upcoming FPS based on the AMC television show doesn&#39;t look like it will stand up to the franchise&#39;s usual level of quality.</p> <p>Survival Instinct is a first-person shooter developed by Terminal Reality, which acts as a prequel to the show, following the Dixon brothers as they fight their way through hordes of zombies on their way to Atlanta. See how the game is coming along in the following gameplay video. </p> <p>[View:2069168137001]</p>Blog Post: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct's Trailer Fails To Impresshttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/xbox360/archive/2013/01/02/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct-39-s-trailer-fails-to-impress.aspxWed, 02 Jan 2013 20:26:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2483520Ben Reeves<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/activision/walking-dead/fail610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p><b>Update: </b>The latest The Walking Dead trailer from Activision was actually a fan-made trailer using b-roll footage of the game. [Excerpt]</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://oneofswords.com/2013/01/walking-dead-survival-instinct-on-igns-up-at-noon/">One Of Swords </a>caught onto the fact that the recent The Walking Dead trailer was actually fan-made and not an official trailer for the upcoming AMC game. However, apparently the trailer was so convincing that many Activision employees thought it was legit.</p> <p><b>Original Post: </b>The Walking Dead is at the top of it&#39;s game right now, but Activision&#39;s upcoming FPS based on the AMC television show doesn&#39;t look like it will stand up to the franchise&#39;s usual level of quality.</p> <p>Survival Instinct is a first-person shooter developed by Terminal Reality, which acts as a prequel to the show, following the Dixon brothers as they fight their way through hordes of zombies on their way to Atlanta. See how the game is coming along in the following gameplay video. </p> <p>[View:2069168137001]</p>Blog Post: Emotion By Choicehttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/user_reviews/archive/2012/12/01/emotion-by-choice.aspxSat, 01 Dec 2012 23:12:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:2418776Josh Wagner<p> <p><span> </span>Collectively, it&#39;s been over 6 months since I played the first episode of Telltale&#39;s, The Walking Dead. In the beginning months, I highly anticipated the next installment. As time moved forward, and more episodes were released, the anticipation dwindled.</p> <p><span> </span>The second episode really started to aggravate me, because for a simple game with minimal player control (usually tapping the button that appears on screen) -- the mechanics seemed to be pretty hard to figure out. One scene in particular has Lee looking for a way in to a locked truck for an item to advance. Lee gives a hint about making too much noise by shattering the window, but offers little incite as to a solution. For all I knew, I couldn&#39;t even break in to the truck. There&#39;s generally one issue like this in each episode from 2 onward.</p> <p><span> </span>Another slight pain in the ass is player movement. The sets are usually small, but as Lee moves to the end of one area, the screen and camera readjust to show more. This readjusted angle often confused me as to where I had come from, and where I could actually continue moving. This isn&#39;t an issue in action sequences, because those are all handled with quick time events. Even so, if anyone likes to explore like I do, you&#39;re going to want to find every item at your disposal and check all the nooks and crannies. With the angles of the rooms constantly shifting, this is hard to do. White context sensitive dots appear over things that can be checked out, and sometimes a room can be loaded with these. I spent a lot of time checking the same stuff repeatedly because I couldn&#39;t tell whether the cursor was in the back- or foreground.</p> <p><span> </span>That being said, the story is entertaining. The choices, whether they actually do mold the story or not, feel like they have a ton of weight. Having a limited amount of time to make these choices made the story even more effective. Being able to allow a member of the party to live or die is the most crucial part of the game. Sadly, certain characters are still rudimentary in the story and their fate is not in the hands of the gamer. A lot of the decisions involve conversations and the opinion of Lee based on his actions, and these are what I found myself most intrigued by. The decisions that required shooting or action -- this is where Walking Dead falters a bit. Lee is as likely to kill a party member as he is to save them, regardless of intentions. This made me think I sucked a few times, but the accuracy just doesn&#39;t exist. Some zombie shooting galleries later in the game reveal this as 100% true.</p> <p><span> </span>The Walking Dead is quite literally a choose your own adventure video game. There is some action, but it feels underdeveloped, out of place and gets quite repetitive. If you like a good story, as I do, that you feel like you can shape in to a climactic journey all your own, then this episodic adventure is well worth your time. If you&#39;re looking for polished mechanics and zombie killing action, you would be wasting your money. All 5 episodes are roughly 2 hours, give or take 30 minutes, and every episode offers quality tension with a nice cliffhanger at the end. Check your tissue box if you&#39;re sensitive, because the last 2 episodes are pretty rough.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>NOTE: After downloading the last two episodes when 5 was released, I experienced a bug that saved over my progress upon trying to begin the 4th episode. I was beyond pissed. After cooling off and doing some research, I found that this was &quot;patched,&quot; but the patch was downloaded BEFORE I encountered the bug. Telltale support say to move your progress from the 1st to the 3rd save slot, and continue from that copied save, For whatever reason, it has to be played from the 3rd slot when this happens. The negative to encountering this bug, is that it is entirely likely that some of your decisions up to that point will be randomly generated. It sucks, and I have heard no word of a fix for it.</p> </p>Blog: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - Xbox 360http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/xbox360/default.aspxFri, 06 Jul 2012 17:25:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:29293AnonymousBlog: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - PlayStation 3http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/ps3/default.aspxFri, 06 Jul 2012 17:25:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:29292AnonymousGroup: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/default.aspxFri, 06 Jul 2012 17:24:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:1941AnonymousForum: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct Discussionshttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/f/29288.aspxFri, 06 Jul 2012 17:24:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:29288AnonymousBlog: User Reviewshttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/user_reviews/default.aspxFri, 06 Jul 2012 17:24:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:29290AnonymousUser reviews for The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct Blog: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - PChttp://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_walking_dead_survival_instinct/b/pc/default.aspxFri, 06 Jul 2012 17:24:00 GMT79ef0c18-1c65-4225-984f-fdaeab0f0862:29291Anonymous